Cross Post: The State of the Race: Will There be a Hillary Effect on the Oscar Race?

By
Sasha Stone
|
Women and HollywoodSeptember 30, 2013 at 12:00PM

Imagine as we enter Oscar race 2013 three strong films written and directed by women, with leading women at the forefront, one of which is crowned the early frontrunner to win. Imagine an Oscar race where it didn't matter anymore. Maybe it's the same year Kathryn Bigelow, Angelina Jolie and Jane Campion all have Oscar frontrunners.

Imagine as we enter Oscar race 2013 three strong films written and directed by women, with leading women at the forefront, one of which is crowned the
early frontrunner to win. Imagine an Oscar race where it didn't matter anymore. Maybe it's the same year Kathryn Bigelow, Angelina Jolie and Jane Campion
all have Oscar frontrunners. Even though it's 2013, 86 years after the Oscars began, it seems an impossibility. There are too many obstacles. Most dramas,
hell, most films, revolve around a central male character. Even the film that won the first and only woman Best Director and Best Picture was all about men
in war. When was the last time a film with a central female character won Best Picture? 2002's Chicago, over a decade ago.

Although most people are irritated by this conversation, it is a conversation that must be had, given that women represent over half the population. There
are so many of us women, in fact, that it is odd we're still called a minority. To understand why it's always about the central male figure in the Oscar
race, and in Hollywood in general right now (it wasn't always the case) we need to examine a twofold problem. On the one hand, the majority of industry
filmmakers and voters are male -- especially within the Academy across the board in most branches, with the possible exception of the Screen Actors Guild.
Ticket buyers often tend to be male because movies of all kinds target the male mentality. The other problem is that somewhere along the line women began
buying tickets to the few crappy movies aimed at them because there weren't any other better movies to choose from. Thus, the rom-com genre devolved from
being pretty great in the 1970s, 80s and even 90s, into what it is now: regurgitated rescue porn.

Once women stopped being an important demographic for the "important" films they lost much of their power to drive Hollywood film decision-making, I think.
Just look at what kind of impact Jennifer Lawrence and Kristen Stewart have had at the box office. Both of them have proved they can draw large numbers of
female moviegoers and both have been given opportunities to do more than just be a superhero in a tentpole production. Here's to hoping both of them
recognize they have power and use that power wisely.

Twenty years ago the box office and the Oscars were both driven by films that starred women, films about women. Imagine the year when Sally Field won for Places in the Heart -- two other movies about women in peril were made that year -- The River with Sissy Spacek and Country with
Jessica Lange. Each of these were strong women holding together families and farms. Can you imagine those movies being made now? Can you imagine even Thelma and Louise being made now?

Let's take it one step further, can you imagine the female President of the United States? The Hillary Clinton campaign is just a rumor right now. No one
knows if she will run in 2016 but her supporters are rallying the troops.

Harvey Weinstein says this year -- with the success of The Butler, Fruitvale Station and 12 Years a Slave -- has much to do with
The Obama Effect. Is it just a coincidence that we're living through Obama's second term and are seeing African American and black filmmakers in the Oscar
race like never before?

I am not sure the Obama effect has opened doors for black filmmakers now. But it's hard to make a case that it hasn't. Before Obama was leading the race
for the presidency most people I knew thought there was no way a black man could ever be elected in a still-very-racist country. Hell, publishers won't
even put black actors on the covers of their magazines with any regularity. The lack of diversity at the Emmys illustrates how prime time television
remains a mostly white domain. A black president in America? 10 years ago it was unimaginable. Now it's a reality.

It once seemed as if Kathryn Bigelow's win for The Hurt Locker in 2010 meant that doors had been kicked down in one fell swoop, that there would
be a Bigelow effect. But there really wasn't. The only slight movement has been that a few more actresses have decided to try their hand at directing.
Angelina Jolie, Sarah Polley, and now, Cate Blanchett are all directing now. Perhaps making films at all is the first step but remember, filmmakers have to
run the gauntlet before they ever get to Oscar.

The gauntlet is this: impress mostly white, mostly male bloggers and critics. Then, earn enough at the box office to matter. This is secondary these days
but can sometimes mean the difference between utter obscurity and prominence. Then, enjoy the myth-making that comes with worshiping various film
directors. You can always tell who has the cred and who doesn't. Steve McQueen has the cred. Lee Daniels doesn't. The cool kids rally around McQueen and
they doll out snide tweets and comments against Daniels. But The Butler has more going for it than the support of the cool kids -- box office and
major star power. Hell, practically everyone in SAG is in it.

What female directors have the cool kids cred? Well, it helps to be pretty. Sarah Polley, Kathryn Bigelow and Sofia Coppola fit easily into the cool kids
myth-making. Jane Campion is one of the best filmmakers in the world and yet she's never really given the kind of lift-off her male contemporaries have.

This year, Jason Reitman has Labor Day, which is sweetly told from a female perspective. There is Saving Mr. Banks, about the woman who
wrote Mary Poppins. There is Cate Blanchett as Blue Jasmine. Maybe there's Enough Said. Maybe there's Before Midnight.
Maybe there's August: Osage County (Meryl Streep is practically single-handedly keeping films about women of a certain age alive and well at the
box office), and then there's that utterly rare creature, Gravity.

Interestingly, there is already a wave of grumbling from the usual suspects online that Sandra Bullock's part in Gravity is a "woman's journey,"
as if that in itself is considered a liability. A woman's journey is right up there with Eat Pray Love -- which means it's somehow tied in with
Oprah which means that anything tied in with Oprah is somehow suspect. Don't be fooled by this mindless chatter. It is textbook misogyny. Oprah happens to
be one of the wealthiest and most powerful women in the world. She got there by working hard every day of her life and what does she get for that? She has
to suffer the scorn of Jonathan Franzen's superiority complex and an endless stream of disrespect coming from everyone else. The mere thought that she
might win an Oscar for The Butler has white males marinating in misery.